Right, I’ve been hearing with my ears that punters want to know what’s so difficult about a right wing being shunted out of position and having his try-scoring form ruined by that bastard Lancaster, sorry, moved to play on t’left.

It’s hard to explain this to them’s that’s not got a good academic background in League, but I’m going to give it my best shot.

You know right, when you’re lookin’ in t’mirror right?

Did you know that your face was on backwards?

Fookin’ mental, but I swear it’s t’truth. It’s a bit like that.

When you’re on t’right, t’crowd’s to your right, and the lads are to your left.

If you look down carefully, your right boot’s nearer t’touchline than your left.

Now, when some fookin’ bastard shunts you out to t’left, everything changes.

Suddenly, t’crowds on your left, your fookin’ left, and the lads are all fookin’ miles away on t’right. When you look down you get all fookin’ dizzy ‘cos your feet are on backwards. Your left boot is nearer t’touchline than your right.

So, it’s like t’mirror thing only much worse…

Your whole fookin’ body is on backwards.

Chris Ashton donated his fee for this column, just can’t remember where.

@Wreck
This is the problem.
Not only do they not give a fuck about the Amlin, they’ve publicly stated it, so their fans won’t give a fuck either.
They should be brought up before the beaks on charges of not making best efforts in a competition.
Bastards.

@daff – I has a craft teacher at junior school called Ma Pritchard. She took a dislike to me and bullied and mocked me mercilessly during her lessons. Her favourite trick was to walk around the aisles with a ruler and hit you over the knuckles with it it she didn’t like what you were going. She was fat and wore bright red lipstick, and screamed ‘silly duffer’ so hard in your face that you could smell the lipstick.

Needless to say it left its scars, and I’m crap to this day working with anything that needs handicraft skills. I even went to my son’s parents day at his nursery school and the teachers thought it would a great idea for the mums and dads to make models out of the kids stuff a la Blue Peter. I broke out into a genuine cold sweat at the thought.

I hope it comes back to haunt Toulouse – they might not care about the Amlyn but it does carry ranking points if they took it seriously.
A drop in their ranking resulting from this season followed by struggling in groups of death in the HC would serve them right.

Absolutely no fucking excuse for it no matter what the provocation
At the risk of sounding like one of those whataboutery types at the bottom of a Bidisha article on CiF, this isn’t always the case. Without wanting to replace data by anecdote, I know of one guy (about 14 stone and in good shape) who was mentally and physically assaulted on a regular basis by his then girlfriend (of normal build). He didn’t respond because he thought (a) it isn’t the done thing to hit women and (b) if he had it wouldn’t have been any use pointing out his bruises, bites and nail marks, because the police and other safeguarding authorities wouldn’t believe it was her and not him who was the provocateur. It took him a long time to admit this has happened, because as he said ‘it just doesn’t happen to blokes and everyone would have thought me soft’

As it happens the woman in question, a few months after the split, took an almighty kicking off someone, ironically a woman.

I remember there was a bomb scare at an IKEA the Netherlands a few years back. There was a one-frame cartoon in the Observer (Thompson) of 2 bomb disposal guys defusing it and one has a left-over screw in his hand and very worried look on his face.

Much like a certain wendyball player openly admitting that he’d aimed to get a booking to clear his account going into the next phase of a tournament, the problem isn’t the decision it’s the admitting of it.

Noves is a clown for saying this. He could have quite easily have stuck his 2nd or 3rd string side in there and let them play and say nothing. He’s got to field a team for the competition, and it could have been developmental for them as individuals. Who knows, they might have progressed and faced a side on a downward trajectory that might be trading on past glories. Or Wasps, for that matter.

Friend of mine – 5’5″, 140 lbs, was regularly assaulted by his taller, heavier wife. Finally he called the cops. At first they didn’t believe him, until he showed them his bruises and pointed out the disparity in their physical size. She got carted off to the clink, divorce followed rather swiftly.

@MisterIlks – mate, that sounds horrible. I had a few teachers when I was young who weren’t afraid of using the ruler (not sure if this is usual, given I’m still in my twenties… not that long ago, I’m talking early nineties here) but nothing that bad. Horrible.

@karl – agreed. It’s really very complicated in general (specific cases can obviously be much more straightforward). At core it comes down to “what justifies violence?” which is a question I’m not sure has been fully answered by anyone, ever.

Re. Amlin – while that is a shame for Noves to say that, Toulouse have such a strong squad that they’ll have competitive teams out anyway, plus this could just be some genial meaninglessness from GN. Cf. Les Mots sur La Manche for further study. Schmidt says Leinster will fight on two fronts. Pro12 will be the priority – but as they’ve been beaten in each of the last three finals I’d say that’s understandable.

@rugbywreckage:I see that Guy Noves has stated categorically that Toulouse will not be giving any attention to the Amlin now that they’re out of the HEC and will be concentrating solely on the Top 14.

I don’t know where you read this. If it was on the Planet rugby site, I’d question their translation. All Novès said was that he did not even know Toulouse was reversed into the Amlin ( they’ve never been in it before, they were in the H-Cup for the past 15 seasons) and that they’d concentrate on the Top-14. (Biarritz next Saturday). As far as I know, he never said they would not take the Amlin seriously.
Bouilhou actually mentionned today in Midol that Toulouse being Toulouse, even if the Amlin is a bit of a “consolation prize” after the H-cup, they’d go to Perpignan to win their QF.

I dunno, a few experienced players isn’t a bad idea – they know the ropes and should be a steadying influence on the younger players.

Yes, but it’s not a few. It’s the vast majority. Now, I can make a decent case for Fitz being there, given recent injury problems and feeling his way back to International rugby, but Trundle? Toner? Boss? Court?

No chance. The Wolfhounds should be an “experimental” side. If this is Deccie being experimental, then it’s no wonder Ireland are so stagnant.

How about you just take the original ATL article and re-post it, change its page title to have ‘re-post’ at the end of it, and then archive off the original article and close it for further comments. Then we can start with an uncreaking blog, at the minute the dinghy is about to get swamped I fear.

Toner has only had 3 caps internationally, which is three too many in my book. I wouldn’t have him playing, but for different reasons. Glad to see Henshaw getting a run at FB – he’s been brilliant for us this season and looks the real deal. And he was born in 1993. Christ that’s depressing.
I would have gotten rid of Boss, Toner and Trimble from there.

The point, basically, isn’t age- it’s suitability. I have no idea why either Delon or Monye played for the Saxons, and wouldn’t advocate either (much as I did previously rate both as players), or Myler for that matter, but Deccie is refusing to even look away from his favourites for the full side, and this filters down.

@cat – those weren’t Joe’s words, or not that I recall anyway, about prioritisation. I read some quotes from him saying he wanted to win both. The rest is my reading of things: I find it hard to believe they will not try and win the Pro12 this year, first and foremost. The players looked broken after losing the final last year (lat-the-death winner by Shane in his last proper match, so few begrudgers…) even though it’s a pointless league no-one cares about and they’d lifted the HEC just a week earlier *coughs*.

@cat – one other side of suitability is how far they are realistically from playing for the national side.

If someone’s not on the national radar at all, why use this game to play them, get them used to the environment, playing with these other fellas, etc? Looked at from that point of view, picking Trimble makes a fair amount of sense. OK, he’s maybe Ireland’s fifth or sixth choice winger right now – but would there be any reason to choose someone who’s eighth, ninth, tenth choice? You say it’s about experimentation, but it starts to get a bit pointless so far down the roster.

OK, I’m sure there are players out there who will be better than AT in the future, but the Wolfhounds play next year too.

Also, ideally you want these teams to win, experience helps that, and it also helps the younger players come through (or is supposed to).

There’s a balance to be struck. For the record, I would not have picked Trimble, and would have had Marmion on the bench instead of Boss, Ruddock starting over McLaughlin, Henderson over either second row (and, if not, fuck Ruddock, start IH at six). Maybe more changes if I think about it.

Court I’m fine with, he’s in a shootout with Kilcoyne for the bench LH spot, let them fight it out this week. Makes sense.

Also, it’s not about experimentation, it allows for experimentation. It gives coaches the freedom to try a few things if they wish. It’s about the coach doing what he wants to do. Sadly I have little faith in our coach.

It was the Planet Rugby site where I read about Noves comments so I take your point about translation. It does quote him as saying that he wasn’t aware that Toulouse were even in the Amlin but he also goes on to say (according to PR at least) that they will “concentrate on the championship, nothing more than that.”.

Which I read as not really giving a stuff about being in the Amlin?

It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d been stitched up a bit there or quoted out of context, it’ll be interesting to see what he says next time he’s asked perhaps?